Thursday, December 12, 2013

In this season of research in HawkStr8Talk-ville, I was having trouble figuring
out what metric is necessary to help us understand the Hawks season and our
rebuilding effort. Our first trip
through real research ended with a slightly disappointing response to our last
blog. Well, it’s only disappointing in
that we failed to convince EVERY Hawks fan that our most likely path to future
championship prosperity is through one or more lottery draft picks. That said, it will not deter me from
continuing to provide the best in statistical basis for my musings. This week’s attempt: Good Win / Bad Loss Rankings
and the Aldridge Leap. So with that, it’s
time for the truth to set us as free as Nelson Mandela (RIP).

Good Win / Bad Loss Rankings

Here at HawkStr8Talk HQ – I’ve long noted the lack of strength in the
Hawks playoff run over the past 6 seasons.
The thought being – in the regular season, we beat teams with less
talent than us, we lose to teams with more talent than us, and then come
playoff time – we don’t really even compete in the face of equal or better
talent. So, I went to the lab to create
some measure that shows the real strength in a team’s season. Something that will normalize whether a team
is actually punching above average or not relative to their talent to show
whether they are truly a good team, improving team, or team that is a function
of its schedule.

To do so, we’ve created the Good Win / Bad Loss Rankings. In these rankings, a + ranking means that on
average - you can beat similar or better teams, a –minus ranking means you normally
you don’t and a 0 says that you pretty much do what is expected all based on
the talent of your and your opponent’s talent. Now, I’ll go ahead and acknowledge
that the judgment of Good Win vs. Bad Loss is subjective in terms of evaluation and expectations for each team, but I'm not letting that stop this great idea from coming to fruition. My general rules for now will be simple - I
won’t penalize a team for losing on a back to back or to a mid-level team on
the road. Otherwise, if you should have won and didn’t – Bad Loss. If you shouldn’t have won or the team is a possible
contender for a top 4 playoff seed - Good Win.

Let’s look at the top 3 teams in the East & West to see how well
teams truly are doing according to the GW/BL Metric:

Indiana (1st in NBA): +5
(5GW; 0BL)

Oklahoma City (3rd): +4
(5GW; 1BL)

San Antonio (3rd): +3
(3GW; 0BL)

Portland (2nd): +2
(4GW; 2BL)

Miami (5th) +1
(3GW; 2BL):

Atlanta (tied for 13th) -2
(.5GW; 2.5BL) *

Based on this ranking, the season so far has been below average for our
fair Atlanta Hawks. The great thing about this ranking is that it takes into
account the East’s terribleness. So, a
team like the Heat can be 16-6 and show that based on their team’s talent –
they aren’t playing awesome basketball. In
the Hawks case, it shows that despite a .500 record – if we were good – we’d be
exploiting our weak schedule for a few more wins. So, instead of looking at a 3 seed - we'd look harder at the .500 record in a terrible conference.

A few items should jump out at you:

I repeat - we’re 3rd in the East and yet are
tied with 2 other teams for the 13th best record in the NBA. Our 3 seed would not be in the playoffs in the Western Conference. This can't be overstated.

It should debunk the theory that the Hawks are
performing at a level to get excited about so far unless of course - you expected the Hawks to be around 7-15 or below. This is coupled with the note
that we are more games further from the 2nd seed (5) than we are
from the 14th seed (4.5).For
those who think it would be difficult to tank, we’re only 2.5 games out of the
9th seed position.That’s one
3 to 4 game losing streak from happening.

Note: We’ll be revisiting and likely improving upon this metric as we
move along through the season, so put your tweaks to the formula in the
comments.

*The Hawks GW/BL games were defined as follows: .5 GW vs. the Clippers 2.5 BLs vs. Knicks, Magic, and Celtics. .5 game credit since the Clippers were on a
back to back and played us at home. .5 game credit given for playing the
Celtics on a back to back and that the Celtics are not as bad as
advertised.

Guard Ups & Downs

One of the narratives of the year has been how well Jeff Teague has
been doing so far. So much so that early
on – he was being touted as an early candidate for Most Improved Player and
Eastern Conference All Star, but…Teague hasn’t been playing so well
lately. Teague’s FG %, 3pt %, FT % and
assists are all down early this season and only his scoring and assists are up
from last year overall. Now, this isn’t
to say that Teague doesn’t look better this year at the quarter pole. He definitely looks improved, but the question is – did we get excited too
fast? did we overstate how good he was doing? Which Teague is the real one – the
one dropping double doubles throughout the first 3 weeks of the season or this
recent version? It was no secret that
John Wall was likely a better PG in the East than Teague, but is Michael
Carter-Williams as the 2nd best PG in the East starting to sound about right (and yes, that would be me ignoring Kyrie Irving right now)?

While we wait to see if Teague can right his recent drop in production,
we can say that Shelvin Mack has secured a firm grip on the backup PG position.
While I’ve been a proponent of living through the growing pains of developing a
German Rondo, I will say that Mack has shown that maybe there’s upside to be
gleaned yet. He’s 8th of the
East’s PGs in PER (though that’s 26th among all NBA PGs). As much as I’d like to see us focus on
developing talents, it’s quite possible that Mack could be worth the time we’re
diverting from G-Rondo. As for G-Rondo,
the D-League wasn’t what I imagined this season, but it worked for Jenkins last
year, so there’s that.

The GM Report

We won’t read much into this, but when your 3 1st round
picks are in the D-League (2) and another is suspending his contract in order
to get competent diagnosis / treatment for his knee – let’s just say that it’s
not the best week to tout the GM’s acumen.
So far – we’ll keep giving Ferry more credit for his free agent signings
than we’ll give him demerits for his draft picks, but this development merits
further monitoring. Scrunity is
appropriate when none of your draft picks have scratched serious, consistent
rotation work on a rebuilding team.

In This Week’s “Why We Needed Danny Ferry 2 Years Before He Got Here?”
Department:

Jordan Crawford was last week’s Eastern Conference player of the week.
The same Jordan Crawford who we selected and traded along with a 1st
round draft pick to secure the services of Kirk Hinrich. Take a moment and let that sink in…

Can A Hawks Make The Aldridge
Leap?

There has long been a debate regarding Al Horford (given the usage) and
his ability to make the leap from really good to superstar production. I’ve
always thought – not gonna happen, but hope springs eternal in the name of
LaMarcus Aldridge. When comparing career
trajectory in terms of demeanor, team
worth, Power Forward/Center preferences, league tenure, and fringe All
Star-ness - LaMarcus Aldridge is as close a fit to Al Horford as I can find. We will note though that for those who would
make the assertion that Aldridge and Horford are equals, the stats and team
records would beg to differ.

Equals or not - it’s encouraging for Al’s future prospects to see that
Aldridge has seemingly made the leap necessary for his team to legitimately be
seen as a contender. Whether that continues remains to be seen, but the
question of whether Horford can make the Aldridge Leap has renewed itself.

Ending The Fear Factor

The Hawks have had the fortune to not indulge in seller’s remorse over
the past few years. When Jordan Crawford is the worst decision you’ve made with
regard to letting players go – regret shouldn’t be high on the list of
emotions. I raise this point to say that if we trust Danny Ferry as much as his
work to date suggests we should – the fan base shouldn’t have a problem with
whatever is necessary to attain the talent necessary to truly win. So, that
brings me to what players are worth trading for outside of draft picks (my
overwhelming preference):

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

In what is sure to be a theme throughout this year at Peachtree Hoops and NBA message boards worldwide, the path to a title has been debated pretty vigorously. In an earlier blog, I made the assertion that the Hawks cannot begin to honestly consider themselves working toward contender status until they have a Hall of Fame foundation to build upon. In essence, until we have a future Hall of Famer on the roster, we're spinning our wheels. With Thanksgiving on deck, I'd never be one to tell you that the appetizers, sides, desserts, and drinks are not important, but if you don't have a turkey or a ham - you don't actually have a Thanksgiving dinner.

From that backdrop, the argument of whether the Hawks need to draft their Hall of Fame talent from the lottery to even consider ourselves a future title contender has ensued. Instead of continuing to debate opinions, it's time to pull out some facts to support what we thought was a simple and fairly irrefutable thought. So in the season of Hawks Str8Talk’s commitment to research, I thought it important to ask some legitimate questions and provide some support for this contention.

Q: Can You Win A Title Without A Hall of Famer?

A: History would suggest NO. In 63 years, only 2 teams have won a championship without the fortune of a (future) Hall of Famer residing on the roster. In the lottery era, there have only been 2 teams that have won a championship without at least 2 future Hall of Famers on the roster (Houston 1994 and Detroit 2004). While anything is possible, it’s impossible to escape the fact that the NBA is the most dependent on star power to win a title and this makes sense since with best of 7 series and only 5 players on the court at a time - the best player and best team will invariably win almost every time.

Which would leave us with the question - if there is a belief that a team can win without a Hall of Famer, what have you seen from the Hawks organization, personnel, and coaching that would suggest that the Hawks would be able to buck this trend?

Q: Assuming you are siding with history, do the Hawks have a future Hall of Famer on the roster?

A: History would suggest NO. The numbers normally necessary that must be amassed and the level of talent that makes the Hall are not evident from any current Hawk on paper or by the eye test. That said, if we were to make the leap of faith that there is one, the obvious answer would be Al Horford and even my Hawk colored eyes would be hard to say that it’s possible to see that kind of growth in Al’s game.

Now, if you have gotten past these two questions in agreement that you can’t win a chip without a Hall of Famer and that the Hawks don’t have one, then we have to move to the key element in our championship run – which is “How Do The Hawks Acquire a Hall of Fame Talent”?

Before we start down this path, let’s preface this discussion first. It is incredibly difficult to win a NBA Title. You have to get lucky (ping pong balls, desperate teams, stupid GM-ship, draftee motivation/will/work ethic). It requires great locker room, great coaching, great role players, great… (fill in the blank). So simply that to even start to consider winning a title – you have to have the talent. You can change the coach, change the system, change the mix, but you can’t go without the talent. So, let’s get to how this happens:

Via Lottery Draft Picks –In the lottery era, there have been 8 franchises out of 32 that have won titles. Those franchises collectively had 16 current or future Hall of Famers that were on the teams that won titles. (Note: I’ll also note the Hall of Famers that were selected prior to the lottery era). They are:

Additionally, the 2004 Detroit team was led by 3 players (R. Wallace, Billups, Hamilton) who were all lottery picks. Despite the discontentment some have with a reliance on ping pong balls to acquire a talent, the numbers suggest there’s no better way to acquire a Hall of Fame talent. As much as some people detest tanking, this is the reason teams consider doing it.

Via Trade – There have been 6 current or future Hall of Famers who have been traded to a team that won a title. They are:

Clyde Drexler

Dennis Rodman

Shaquille O’Neal

Jason Kidd

Kevin Garnett

Ray Allen

An interesting footnote to this avenue for getting Hall of Fame talent is that in each instance – you already knew that these were potential Hall of Famers (save Rodman) and therefore, that’s why it’s much more unlikely to pull these trades off – GMs know that these are the kinds of talents that your franchise can win a title with.

Via Non-Lottery Draft Pick – There have been 4 current or future Hall of Famers who have been selected outside of the lottery and went on to win a title. They are:

Joe Dumars

Dennis Rodman

Manu Ginobili

Tony Parker

The interesting footnote here is that it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that for each of these 4 players – none of them would be Hall of Famers if it was simply about their own abilities.

Via Free Agency – There are 3 current or future Hall of Famers who have signed with another team through free agency and went on to win a title.

Shaquille O’Neal

LeBron James

Chris Bosh

This is the hardest way to get a Hall of Famer to join your team. You have to compete with cap space, other teams and cities, tax-free states, and timing. Those are the kinds of elements that are hard to bet on, particularly if you are a small to medium market teams.

And there you have it – the numbers are in and if it’s the odds that you want to play (and we know many don’t), then it’s time to get a lottery pick and let the luck be our guide. As always, see you in the comments…

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Welcome to the first in-season Honesty Corner for 2013-14As noted in the preseason review,
this will be the season of research.There was some digging in the crates to find some information I thought
might be pertinent to giving some context and perspective to the start of the
2013-2014.Let’s get to it – straight no
chaser.

What We Should Be Excited About?

There are 3 things that have delighted me greatly to start
this year.They are:

Jeff Teague – First, an admission – I’m WRONG.
Yep, I said it. Did some research and found that while there were wayyyy more
people saying I was crazy to suggest starting Teague his rookie season over
Mike Bibby – I did have some backers in the comments. For proof, see this (and what started it all - this. Now, that said - I think the proof is in the pudding. Teague is averaging
double doubles, assists, and consistently attacking. It’s as if they just said go
be Tony Parker. Something I suggested about oh 4 years ago…

Paul Millsap – Another admission – this research
thing is awesome when it reveals things that make you look as smart as Kris
Willis.So, if you read thisor feel free to search for Milsap (incorrect spelling is key) at
hawkstr8talk.com to see the 6 blogs about my mini-crush on Paul Millsap.While I
haven’t made a determination on whether I’d like to keep him or move him in an
attempt to find a better star talent, I can say – he is as advertised.Not missing Josh Smith a lick.

On Court Development – It’s awesome to watch our
new talents (Dennis Schroeder, Mike Scott, Pero Antic) playing in
all situations (early, 4th quarter, late game).You don’t prepare people for all game
scenarios by never playing them in ALL game scenarios. Regardless of whether it
loses you some games due on misplaced trust, it’s a necessary building
block.

What We Shouldn’t be Excited About?

There are a few things that have bothered me so far this
year. They are:

Our Record – Well, it’s not really our record.
It’s more about the fans who seem to be impressed by what’s happened so far
this season.We were 3pts away from a
winless preseason.We have won 4 games
vs. teams were better than and lost 4 games to teams who are all equal or worst
than us save the Knicks (and the Knicks aren’t that good).Not sure I’ve seen much on a team level that
makes me optimistic about this team’s prospects.

Kyle Korver – I don’t care that Lou
Williams should change this when he returns. We are relying on Korver too
much.There’s no reason that your 4th
best player should be leading the team in minutes.This may sound like a dig, but it isn’t –
Kyle Korver shouldn’t start for a team that wants to win a championship. Our
team isn’t at that level, so I’m fine with him as a temporary starter, but if Danny Ferry thinks he's a fixture with Lou at the shooting guard, then we are treating him as a critical
cog that must punch well above his weight. Worked for Evander Holyfield, but Kyle is no Evander Holyfield.

Jump Shooting – I’ll admit that the
Knicks game is fresh, but this has been true in other games so far and that’s
that – we still are relying too much on making jumpers.The motion offense, like many other offenses,
are good at creating jump shots.Teams
want you to shoot them. You don’t win much that way, though. Jury's out on the offense until I see how it benefits the inside post game.

Similar to my crusade for Jeff Teague’s increased playing time in 2009-2010, I
also was pretty adamant that we play John Jenkins more last year. In both cases, I was swimming upstream in my opinion here. And the dissent to that opinion is that you trust that the coach knows best who should and shouldn’t play for their teams and this idea that minutes are won in practice (Newsflash!! There's not much competitive practice once the season starts).Unfortunately, it doesn’t correctly assess
some very critical factors that are baked into my push for John Jenkins to
start for the Atlanta Hawks at best and to have significant minutes off the
bench at worst. Mainly, that we need to KNOW who John Jenkins is. Knowing requires game play.

The Hawks have a habit of being unable to assess whether our
draft picks are hits or misses through play on the court.For young players in this salary cap era, you almost
have to ‘give’ them an opportunity. Rarely will those young players be better than the veterans in front of them, so the assessment is - will that always be the case? Will Jenkins be worst than Korver or Williams 2-3 years from now when I'm hoping ready to contend? If not, do I need to replace him with someone who can? There are instances
where forethought helps you determine how best to make the best use of your
future trade/draft/free agent options.This
plays out in both scenarios.If Jenkins
is good, you don’t need Korver and you can spend that cap space on something
you do need (small forward, center, backup small forward, a star).If Jenkins isn’t good, then you know that you
have a shooting hole that you still may or may not need to fill.

So, if it comes to pass that John Jenkins has fallen out of
favor, the downside of that happening without on court evidence is meaningful.It
either a) means that Danny Ferry made a mistake in drafting him (and for those
– there was no one else to draft folks, I would argue that the other possible
options – Draymond Green, Tony Wroten (of recent triple double fame), or Jeff
Taylor could be part of our rotation) OR b) means that it’s possible Coach Bud
isn’t as good at reaching all players. It’s too early to be definitive there,
but it’s worth watching for more clues.

The Lottery Debate
Continues

I keep hearing reasons we shouldn’t care about the lottery at the expense of
this season and all I’ll say is – I was more entertained watching Jabari Parker
vs. Andrew Wiggins than I have been during any Hawks game this season. The possibility of Jabari Parker balanced against 2014-2015 Demarre Carroll - worth the gamble? Unrelated
Note: I’ve been very entertained watching the Hawks this season.

Blind Trust – Too Soon?

Final note – I’ll start with this disclaimer. I’m very happy
about many elements of what we’re doing in Atlanta from a management and
coaching standpoint.That said, I refuse
to go so far as to give full trust to Danny Ferry and Coach Bud.The reason is simple – I’ve seen this
before.For everyone who is excited
about Coach Bud’s offense, I think it’s important to remind them that Larry
Drew’s offense looked very similar out the gate. In fact, many people were saying exactly the same thing when we came out of the game well each of his seasons as coach - hey, we like that motion. Down with the iso-Joe, yada, yada, yada. Nothing radical has changed scheme wise and so, while there are still bad jump shots, it's just refreshing that Josh Smith isn't shooting them for some. Watching Cartier Martin or Mike Scott shoot them seems to make some people feel better about it - I'm not one of them. Same for Ferry - he's still on the clock for as long as a star doesn't walk through those doors.

I don’t say any of that to say I’m not optimistic, but I
just caution the fan base against going all in just yet. The moves made and
work done hasn’t risen to the level of blind trust and total faith. Let’s
continue to make the accountable for all the moves made.Coach Bud unlocking Teague’s potential doesn’t
absolve him of developing John Jenkins or developing a post presence or putting
together an above average defense.Danny
Ferry’s clearing of cap space doesn’t absolve him of finding star talent to use
it on.

And if you aren’t sure about that – do some
research to make the case! See you in the comments…

Friday, October 25, 2013

It’s exciting to get back
to tackling new reporting angles of our beloved Hawks organization. Exciting enough that I’m adding a wrinkle into
my blog pattern called research. My
failed attempts to write more consistently always resided in ‘what storylines are
not being written about?’ The fire to
write about the same topics had waned (Will Josh reach his potential? Is Drew
going to blame something other than energy? What is our identity?), which is why
it’s awesome to be a part of the Peachtree Hoops collective. I get to be fed by the diverse viewpoints presented
about our fair team and that food has served to shape and reshape many of my
notions about the Hawks organization with one notable exception – and that’s I’m
all about the chip.

The rebuild we’ve so desperately needed will now be met with the renewed
fire in my writing philosophy of “speaking truth to power”. That philosophy has no regard for popularity,
so if you detect a laser focus on how we rebuild this franchise that has little
regard for Ws and Ls this season – well, that’s what research does. And so – let’s get to the Truths.

Survey Says “We Need A Hall of Famer”

There’s been heated debate all summer about what the new normal is for the
Atlanta Hawks. Should we be patient or
tank? What does patience entail? What is tanking? Many questions, few unanimously agreed upon answers. So, I spent some time trying to cut through
much of the unscientific rhetoric to see if there were some undisputed truths
around what wins NBA championships (read: actually winning it, not almost, not
getting to the conference finals – actually raising the trophy). So, I reviewed the coaches and players of
every NBA champion from 1950 until 2013. While the eras and team building
exercises have changed dramatically, one thing stood out: YOU GOTTA HAVE A HALL
OF FAMER!!!!

Since 1950, there have only been 2 championship teams that did not
include a Hall of Fame talent. The 1956
Philadelphia Warriors and the 2004 Detroit Pistons. That’s it.
64 championships – 2 without current or future Hall of Fame talent. Now, you can argue a lot of different reasons
why this is so, but you can’t ignore that this ingredient is the ONE constant
that stirs the drink. Yes, you want to have
great coaching, great ownership, and great luck. In whatever ways that leads you to a Hall of
Fame talent to build upon, it should be a universally agreed upon idea that
this is necessary to win a championship.

This brings me to the point – the Hawks don’t have one Hall of Fame
talent. We barely have an All Star and
yes, I do have favorable feelings about Al Horford, but he’s still a fringe All
Star. Hall of Famers are bookable for the All Star Game every year barring
injury. Let the season begin and all
debates center around this one fact.
Anything proposed or done to acquire a Hall of Fame talent should be in
play, Hawks fans. Until then, we’re building
the house on a sand lot.

Delusions of Grandeur

With the Hall of Fame talent point firmly established, I scoured the
internet to figure out – how exactly will the Hawks fan base begin to coalesce
around a core set of goals and it appeared to me that we have to know where we
are. And then this blog
slapped me upside the head. The premise
being that the Hawks are stuck in a rut.
After reading about our Hawks all offseason, the one thing that people don’t
believe is that the Hawks are stuck.
There is a common feeling that our team is moving in the right
direction. I even shared that
feeling. I loved the decision to change
the head coach and to move on from the Josh Smith experiment.

Then, there was the reality of what’s our path to the Hall of Fame
talent.

1.Do we have assets to acquire one via trade? Well, maybe if Al Horford is traded to do
so. What under 25 future Hall of Famer is
likely to be traded?

2.Do we have the cap space and the organizational
acumen to lure a future Hall of Famer to come here via free agency? This summer certainly calls that into
question, but the summer of 2014 will give us another chance to change that
narrative.

3.Finally, do we have the draft picks that will
potentially yield that player? Well, it’s
possible, but when reviewing the Finals MVPs in the lottery era and there’s
only one who was not selected in the lottery and his name is Tony Parker (who
was backed by two other Hall of Fame talents in Duncan and Ginobili). Why is
this important – well, it means it’s EXTREMELY rare to find a Hall of Fame
talent outside of the lottery.

When weighing all of these factors, the thought of being stuck is still
applicable. Is there reason to believe
we’ve improved on the edges? Yes. Is there reason to believe that the
foreseeable future is still the same as it has been for the past 20 years? Sadly Yes.
After hearing about an offseason speculative optimism, the question
still remains – when will we demand better than what we’ve gotten?

Tanking vs. Rebuilding

No topic has been more contentious this summer than the ‘why we should
or shouldn’t tank’ debate. Again, it’s
probably instructive that we all ensure we’re talking about the same thing here
and what camps the debates come from.
First, my definition of tanking is to not play the players you need most
in order to develop into a contending team.
So, the real world example of that is if Nerlens Noel gets to 100%
health and is still sitting on the bench in March – the Sixers are tanking.

The way the system is designed and what history has taught us – being mediocre
begets being mediocre. It rarely propels
you to a Finals push and never results in a NBA title, so being in the lottery
is a goal that any non-contending team should strive for. Most teams play their way there, but some find
bad organizations who for strange reasons give their picks away. Much of the anti-‘tank’ crowd’s reasoning was
centered around two things – that you don’t want to go through the early 2000s
again or that being the lottery doesn’t guarantee anything.

Well, I’ll answer both without regard to whether we should tank or
not. First, we shouldn’t tank, but if
that’s the only way we’re getting a lottery pick, then so be it. The fallacy that many fans are still under is
that the late 90s/early 00s were
infinitely worse than the where we’ve been the last 6 years. Trust me, it’s not much different. There were only 2 seasons where we
realistically had a very small shot at making the Eastern Conference Finals. Letting yourself think we were better than
the bad teams in the NBA because we made the playoffs with absolutely NO chance
of advancing is why we are going through yet another rebuilding effort. And since we are – if there’s ever a time
when you want to sell out completely for 2014, it’s now.

For those who have ESPN Insider access, these twoarticles
should explain why this season has become either a push for a title (for the 8
or so contenders) or a push toward a future title (for the 10 or so really bad
teams) by way of potentially the greatest draft haul ever. Here’s the quick synopsis from several GMs
and scouts:

“There are potentially 5 to 8 All Stars, an elite freshman class, a solid
sophomore class, and a strong international cast.”

So, let’s get the easy naysaying out of the way first. Yes, drafts sometimes
don’t pan out as projected and there is absolutely a luck factor involved in moving
up in the lottery. That said – the question
must be asked - can we afford to operate as if that the people who do this for
a living are wrong or is the opportunity to get a cost controlled Hall of Fame
talent one that you do everything to acquire?

I say it’s the latter. This is why it’s critical that we do everything possible
to land in that lottery without tanking.
Every asset should be in play with regard to on having as many picks in
that draft as possible. And if it’s
determined that we can’t do it any other way than to tank – well….I’m willing
to watch sucky basketball for a full season in order to do so. The opportunity is too great not to. Remember – it’s not putting all of our eggs
in a basket for Wiggins or Randle, but it’s putting our eggs into a basket that
has more potential stars in it than in recent memory. If you trust Danny Ferry, then you should
trust him most where the talent is the greatest.

Who Should We Watch

While the season unfolds, there are definitely people we should be watching in judgment
of how well the rebuild is going. Most
will watch the players. I’ll be watching
Danny Ferry & Coach Bud.

I know people are going to say – what about Teague? Millsap? Schro? And well –
I definitely am going to enjoy watching
them play (or not), but more than anything – this is the year where our true
direction from a leadership perspective is set.
As I said before, Danny Ferry hasn’t won my undying devotion yet. He’s done the easy part and that’s the
teardown. Like Ferry, Billy Knight did a
fantastic job of the same thing. Now, we’re
into the hard part. I want to see how
Coach Bud’s system plays and his ability to operate with a superstar. That’s
hard to figure out when you don’t have one, but part of attracting talent to
Atlanta will hinge on just that. And let’s
be clear – everything that Danny and Bud should be doing should focus less on
2013-2014’s win-loss record and more on their ability to make Atlanta
attractive to the kind of talent that wins championships. Systems don’t win championships. Systems with Hall of Fame talent do.

So, how we focus on acquiring talent and how we develop the talent we
hope will take us to the promised land is much more important than what peripheral
talent does this year. It’s why you won’t
see me spending much time on Kyle Korver or Demarre Carroll in Hawk uniforms. Our players are still just pieces on a
chessboard until the foundation is in place. To think otherwise, takes our eyes
off the prize.

2013-14 Prospects and Prediction

If you hadn’t figured it out by now, you may be under the impression that I don’t
think highly of this year’s team and you’d be right. But any team without championship upside is
going to fall into that category with me.
So, with that said, this team has the talent to be a 6th or 7th
seed. Problem is - I don’t see much upside in
actually attaining that seed, particularly if the team ends the season led by a
healthy starting 5 of Teague/Korver/Carroll/Horford/Millsap. The 17th pick in the draft and
more cap room is not what this team needs to have come out of the end of the
season.

I’ll be much more excited about a Schro/Jenkins/enter SF name
here/Horford/enter C here lineup and its development that just happens to miss
the playoffs in the name of development (and lottery luck). I don’t see that happening, but I can dream,
so mark me down for 42-40 and the 7th seed and another first round
exit. And now we comment…

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

"It's been a long time. I shouldn't have left you." - Rakim (I Know You Got Soul).

Those classic words are 26 years old, so when you contrast those years against my 3 month hiatus (read: gotta new job, y'all) from a blog post - it's like it was yesterday. Plus, with all the new writers at Peachtree Hoops, who needs the truth? With that in mind, it's time for me to needlessly clue my Hawks family in on a few Hawk Str8Talk thoughts on seller's remorse, our 2012-2013 finish, free agency, the draft, summer league, and the job Danny Ferry has done to date. Bill Simmons-esque post coming in 3, 2, 1...

Seller's Remorse

I've been meaning to make one note about those who constantly look backwards to find the ways in which we have made mistakes in our past and wax nostalgic about what could have been. There's really only been one time in Hawks history that Hawks fans have a true right to say "What could have been?" and that's in 1994 when the Hawks traded Dominique Wilkins for Danny Manning. The #1 seed at the time...after the fact, uh...still not out of the second round [Not to mention - the heartbreak of a young Hawks fan...namely me]. Now, as a more knowledgeable NBA fan, I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT PETE BABCOCK AND LENNY WILKENS WERE THINKING!!!!

But for everyone waxing poetic for Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams, Jamal Crawford, Mike Woodson, Larry Drew, Josh Smith, Zaza Pachulia, so on and so forth - love 'em or not - none of them did or were going to lead us in the pursuit of a title. I'll miss Zaza, Ivan Johnson, Josh Smith's potential, and much more, but spare the comment section of debates of the usefulness of these guys. Time has, or in some cases will, prove that these guys weren't bringing titles inside of I-285. Thanks for your contributions old Hawks and on to the next.2012-2013 Season Recap

It was fun to watch a season with no expectations. Not that I agreed with everything (more Jenkins starting, more Ivan, more Zaza (pre-injury) for me), but overall - it's about what I expected. Drew pushed the team in an effort to win regular season and playoff games despite the fact that no amount of pushing was going to get that squad out of the second round. I just hope that the jobs done all around didn't really depend on it. If Danny Ferry is as smart as I think he is, he always was going to get rid of Josh Smith and Larry Drew. Their time was up. I won't spend time here trying to defend or denigrate their efforts. They are who they are and I appreciate their service to the organization, but as I always say - if you're not part of the championship push, we can't use you. This is my nice way of saying - your contributions over the past 6 playoff seasons sucked. Time had spoken and so we move on..Coach Bud, you are on the clock.Danny Ferry isn't better than Billy Knight (yet)

Now before you get your pitchforks and comments formulated with anti-Knight venom, let me say two things: 1) that statement is made based on their time at similar junctures in their time as GM and 2) that yes, as I always have, I am going to semi-defend Billy Knight's tenure in Atlanta. So, with nuance and context, I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to understand the hate of Billy Knight's rebuild effort. Let me preface my thoughts first - he didn't get us to the promised land and for that, I say KICK ROCKS! The end result needed to at some point be a lost job (my firing point - 1 minute after the Shelden Williams draft pick), but for those who prefer this incremental building effort around non-star talent to rebuilding in search of star talent - I just want to remind everyone that the strategy taken by Billy Knight was only one Chris Paul/Deron Williams pick away from being very special. You can hate him for not making the pick (a pick that I have sources who said Marvin wasn't BK's #1 choice - Deron was), but you can't hate the strategy that got us to the point of even being in that position. The strategy was damn near perfect. The execution was damn near awful.

That is the case for almost all of the cases brought up regarding why tanking is bad when the team is staring Hall of Fame talent in the face and don't select it and it's just a bad answer. The right answer is - your management made a big mistake in selecting (insert Kevin Durant, take out Greg Oden or Michael Jordan, take out Sam Bowie). The right answer is - we selected the right player and then in poorly managed fashion we squandered said talent (you hear me, Donald Sterling!) The metrics that say tanking doesn't work are working too hard to craft a lie out of truth - tanking has worked spectacularly for many franchises. Tie almost every rise of championship caliber teams and I'll show you a team that was a 20-30 win team before they got their lottery prize (and to be clear, that doesn't mean it was a #1 pick). Not all of them tanked, but a good number sure didn't spend their time putting the best possible lineup on the court every game. The fact that there's likely 6-10 teams trying hard to get those coveted players ensures that MOST won't, but until you show me that those teams who tried, lost out on coveted lottery talent, and then went about getting it SOME OTHER WAY - it's still the best plan around. Only the Celtics and Lakers of old have ever been able to steal, hoodwink, and cajole their way into high draft picks without the rebuild pain. No middling playoff team is rebuilding on the fly with mediocre, non-superstar driven talent into a championship. The Hawks are a middling team with mediocre, non-superstar driven talent. That said, the fact that the Hawks didn't draft its Hall of Fame talent is on the execution, not the strategy. And for those who believe that we should build around what we got - then, that means we need to build around Al Horford and last I checked - guess who drafted Al Horford (I'll wait). And guess where Al was selected (I'll wait again).

Either way, you can't get away from Billy having a net positive impact on the franchise and you can't get away from the fact that lottery picks are critical to winning titles. Save the statistical analyses and the obligatory Detroit Piston reference and simply show me a pattern of NBA Finals participants that have done it any other way. Which leads me to why Billy Knight was doing a better job at this juncture of his GM tenure - when Billy Knight took over for Pete Babcock - the Hawks had just given away 2 first round draft picks for Dan Dickau and Glenn Robinson and were over the salary cap (a much softer cap at that time). The first things he did were to draft Boris Diaw (a guy who is STILL in the league playing for the (in my whisper voice) Spurs) and to acquire 3 1st round picks (in addition to our own) and 2 2nd round picks while ridding us of the big contracts given Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Alan Henderson. Sound familiar? With those picks, he selected Josh Smith and Josh Childress. Call those what you will, but the averages say that it will be hard for John Jenkins, Bebe, and Schro to match or exceed the career contributions of Diaw, Smith, and Childress.

Now, I give Danny Ferry a ton of credit for the work he's done to date, but none of it matches what Billy Knight did to rebuild this franchise in those first 2 years. We can debate the sound nature of every transaction, but I'd venture a bet that Danny Ferry is going to have some clunker transactions as well. The key is to not have ones that you can't fix. The one move that Knight couldn't fix were the back to back Williams draft selections. And for that he should have been fired, but if you look at the moves made by Pete Babcock and Rick Sund - Knight is Jerry West by comparison. So before we fall so deeply in love with Danny Ferry - let's just remember that the teardown is not the completion of the job - the job is to get elite level assets to win the title. We don't know how good Ferry can be at that task and we should keep putting a critical eye on the ELITE talent acquisition as much as we pay attention to cap flexibility. Until that happens, the task is incomplete.

Free Agency / Draft / Summer League Outlook

I will keep this part short. Signed folks to good, cheap contracts. If this was done to flip them, then I'll reserve judgment until they are flipped. If we signed Korver and Millsap for their playing ability, I'll simply say - until we have elite level talent in Atlanta, these types of deals are meaningless to our ability to win a title. I'd rather have guys on 1 year contracts and play our young guns while amassing ping pong balls than to sign guys who would be role players if our roster was championship ready.

As for the draft picks, I like them. There's a lot to like about Dennis and BeBe. If BeBe can move Horford to the 4, great. If Schro can allow Teague to be flipped for another asset OR be a valuable trade chip the likes of Eric Bledsoe that gives us a lottery level draft pick, fantastic. But we still are some pieces away from being able to legitimately say we can compete with the top 8 to 10 teams in the league, which leads me to the point I'll be making all season...Repeat after me: 2013-2014 should be ALL about lottery picks (Andrew Wiggins or any of the loaded draft class of 2014) and cap flexibility to woo a free agent.

I've predicted the Hawks end of season playoff round for the past 6 seasons save one at the onset of the season. This wasn't difficult to do. I don't believe myself to be some basketball savant to have said we'd be a first or second round loser each year. So, let me do this again...no matter what the Hawks do, no matter what happens to the other teams this season, the Hawks will lose in the first round of the playoffs if they play their best players all season. As a ride or die Hawks fan of 30 years, guess who cares about going to the first round of the playoffs. NOT THIS GUY!!! If we don't have a core that can get appreciably better together, keep blowing it up until it does.

With that said, here's my plea that we don't play our best players this year. Play the players who eventually will be our best players with the projected upside to play well enough to bring a title to town in a 3-5 year window. This team is 3 years away from sniffing at a title. I'm sorry to have to relay that fact to Hawks fans, but a team led by Al Horford as its best player is not a team that is ready to win a title.

For those who think we are 1-2 players away, I'm here to tell you that our supporting cast along with LeBron James is not close to what the Heat have now and would have had trouble last year defeating the Pacers, Spurs, Grizzlies, and so on. We are still missing a small forward who can defend anyone, missing consistency at the point guard position, we have two backup shooting guards, and we are missing true post defense (all respect to Al). That's not found by 1-2 players. So, what does Andrew Wiggins have to do with this? Well, everything and nothing...everything because he represents the cheap labor the Hawks need to a) potentially elevate the talent level of this franchise and b) bring the star power necessary to get fan base energized and players to see Atlanta as the destination of choice to win titles (and on the cheap). Nothing because it's actually very unlikely that we get him.

But I like the odds of the ping pong balls over the odds of trying to depend on a desperate GM or a truly relevant free agent signing onto a squad that is still quite a few pieces away from winning a title. Match that with the free agency competition over the next 2 years coming from the potential $50M that the Lakers and Heat will have open next year - and it could be 2-3 years before we're close to being the most attractive option for free agents. This is why the draft is so important. No team has won a title in the past 20 years without being led by a superstar that was chosen in the lottery. NONE (and yes, I'm including the Pistons of '04 since they were led to a title by the implosion of the Kobe/Shaq Lakers squad).

Last thought - and for those who believe we aren't a market that can attract an elite free agent - 1) you can't just throw in the towel on that as an organization and 2) if you do, then that's even MORE reason why we have to put ourselves in position to get the highest draft pick possible. Stars don't get traded to places like Atlanta hardly ever (Commenters - go ahead and pick someone other than James Harden as your counter to this point). Ok, I've surpassed every word count limit possible - time for comment defense to take hold like it's Space Invaders. Let's get it...

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Let's start with the obvious. It's been 4 LONG months and for reasons that don't matter at all to you guys - I had to take a hiatus, but it doesn't mean that I haven't watched every game and been cheering for progress from our beloved Atlanta Hawks and it didn't mean I didn't miss you all. So, let me pick up where I last left off by sharing some truths (Spoiler Alert - your boy was wrong about a few things! Haters, listen up!) And with that delicious piece of information, let's start with some season ending items and then, my playoff thoughts...2012-2013 told us that:

Al Horford is the Hawks Best Player (and that sucks) – For those who have read my blogs over the years, I've said that Al Horford was anything from a rich man's Chuck Hayes to an All Star Center by default. While I stand by much of that, the post All Star break Al Horford has finally landed at Studsville. All the calls for increased usage for Horford have yielded a truth I didn't think was possible and that's that - Al Horford can produce consistent 20-10s. 20-10s in this NBA means you're a stud. The lack of consistency from Jeff Teague and the inconsistent use of Josh Smith's best basketball skills have finally catapulted me to the new belief that Al Horford is the best player for the Atlanta Hawks. And why does this suck? Well, because a big man who can't rely on his low post moves and who struggles to get the usage necessary to make 20-10s into 30-15s vs. elite talent means if he's your best player - you will never make an Eastern Conference Finals. I'll stop there because any comment after this will lead to a dilution of the gravity of this truth and the acknowledgement that Al Horford has completely elevated his game this season.

My Desired Starting Rotation was wrong (and yet, so right) – In my season preview, I noted that I wanted to see a starting 5 of Horford, Smith, Stevenson, Jenkins, and Teague and I was wrong to ask for that. I'm sure you all are saying - Hawks Str8Talk - you finally admit that John Jenkins should have been coming off the bench and I say - ABSOLUTELY NOT! No, Mr. Stevenson, he of the 'can't play back to back game' Stevensons should have never sniffed the starting lineup for this team. You cater your team to the whims of star players whose health is critical to your playoff chances. Deshawn Stevenson does NOT fall into that category. I'm still at a loss as to why he's not the last of a rotation that includes Korver, Jenkins, Harris, and Tolliver for wing minutes. Listen, he's ok and has moments, but on a rebuilding team - Deshawn Stevenson doesn't deserve ANY minutes. Every minute this season that Deshawn Stevenson has played should have been given to John Jenkins. Period. Plus, it deprived us of the full bliss of Kyle Korver and John Jenkins on the court at the same time further shaming Josh Smith into taking NO outside shots. Which leads me to the next truth...

Larry Drew calls as a midseason Coach of Year candidate were laughable - Starting with the rotating starting lineup (and yes, I acknowledge that injuries had a role here) and ending with a season where Ivan Johnson and John Jenkins at several points took back seats to Johan Petro and Anthony Tolliver (take a moment to think about that for a second), this team has not been setup for success come the postseason and into future seasons. The season's record was respectable. The team beat who it was supposed to. For that, I give a certain amount of credit to Larry Drew, but if the goal is to prepare the team for the playoffs - the Hawks are walking into this postseason ill prepared. The issues referenced in the preseason - lack of rebounding, elite defense, questions regarding in-game adjustments, the 2 foul rule (see Playoff Thoughts), and a lack of development in our youngest players - never changed. All you can say about the Hawks is that they run more this season. Otherwise, there is nothing that I can say has been demonstrated to show that he needs to continue to be the coach of this team. Much like Mike Woodson, Larry Drew has served his purpose as a bridge to a new era and better preparation for playoff success.

Zaza & Lou wouldn't change anything this postseason – Now, that doesn't mean there might not be some changes in seeding, but the problems that the Hawks face against elite talent aren't solved by either party. Yes, Zaza would provide some toughness and offensive rebounding, but he doesn't change the makeup of the entire team. So, for those who are sitting around saying - what if. Don't! The best thing we could have done was fall to the 6th seed (outside of falling out of the playoffs altogether), so we could avoid an outside chance at the 2nd round sweep by the Miami Heat. We can beat the Pacers without these guys if Josh, Jeff, and Al play at an elite level at the same time. So, if it's going to happen, it will. The only thing that changed was the margin for error and my thought is - well, head down the bullets to find out how possible it is for us to move to round 2, but before that...

Danny shouldn't care about these playoffs anyway. – I won't pontificate long on this one, but here's all that our GM should be focused on right now. 1) Is Phil Jackson interested in working for us? 2) If Phil is in, we can use him on an all out offensive for CP3 and DH12? 3) if I can't get any of these 3 guys - how can I move my draft picks from outside the lottery in 2013 and into the Andrew Wiggins sweepstakes of 2014? and 4) no matter what happens - Josh Smith isn't worth than about $10M-$12M a year. Much more can be said about this, but honestly, if those pieces fall in place - then all of your other 1 year free agent gems are easy to make happen (hello, Matt Barnes at the wing on the cheap. Hello, servicable 7ft rim protector, at the league minimum, and hello - sold out Highlight Factory!). Danny, your work is before you.

Playoff Thoughts:

Prediction – I said Pacers in 6. As I said on Twitter, all of our playoff season weaknesses were on display on Sunday. Poor shot selection, poor rebounding, lack of chemistry, lack of in-game adjustments, lack of leadership, no stud to take over the game when other factors fail you, and ...

Larry Drew is an average head coach. – I'll keep saying this over and over and over and over (repeat 10x) again to every person who thinks otherwise - Larry is not a coach you can build a title contender with. Average head coaches don't win titles. He's a great tactician of offensive plays off timeouts and after that, I fail to come up with something he does with excellence. His talents are best used as an assistant coach where you focus on the offensive plays and situations and as the sounding board for players when they are frustrated with the head coach. I know everyone is up in arms over his benching of Al Horford for about 15 minutes less than he should have, but I'm not. Why? Because he hasn't spent any part of this season preparing this team for the playoffs. Where was the outcry when he was jerking around Ivan's minutes (and yes, I'm aware that Ivan isn't the easiest guy to coach, but that's what we're paying Larry Drew for - to handle difficult situations)? Where was the outcry when your BEST shooting guard, John Jenkins, takes half the season to get up to 10-15 minutes a game? Where's the outcry when Josh Smith 2 years into your regime still doesn't know what shot selection is his strong suit? These things may not matter vs. the Sacramento Kings, but they will matter when you are playing the Pacers or the Heat or the Bulls. So, you mask the problem all season long with consistent messages that inconsistent effort is the Hawks' problem, but I see more tactical problems than I do effort problems. Yes, the effort is inconsistent, but so is the coaching and when that's the case - there's only one way for that to end. I'll let you smart readers figure that one out.

And with that, another Honesty Corner is in the books. See you in the comments...

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Back again with more Truths as we
move toward the 2nd half of the season, the All Star Break, and yes…the anticipated trade
deadline. In two weeks time, a lot of
things have changed (or have they?), which means it’s time to drop the hammer of
knowledge. The Anti-FIF! (Chappelle Show
watchers, stand up) starts now…

Lou Williams’ Injury Means… – Nothing for the Atlanta
Hawks outlook on this season. We knew
that these Hawks were going to make the playoffs. We knew these Hawks were not going to make a
sustained run in the playoffs. We knew
that Lou was as locked into a role (6th man) now and in the future
for this team as anyone, SOOOO – yes, it sucks that he’s injured and you never
know what an injury can do to a career, but as I said when Al went down last
year – this really changes our trajectory very little. In fact, I’m almost at a point of saying –
blessing in disguise might be a more apt response for this organization if it
results in more minutes for John Jenkins.
Any investment in his development this season that results in a starting
position for Jenkins OR some revelation that a better long term solution at the
shooting guard position should be found, then Lou’s time with the rehab team
will not be in vain. So, for those
people looking for a scapegoat for why the Hawks aren’t (fill in the blank),
look elsewhere. The Hawks are a better
team with Lou Williams, but the ceiling for this season (and the floor for that
matter) didn’t change as a result.

The Hawks Didn’t Deserve An All Star – This probably
isn’t a popular opinion, but the Hawks have always been fortunate to even be
able to call Al Horford an All-Star. He
was never one of the best 12 players in our conference (certainly not more so than Josh Smith) and I’ve been on record that only in 2009 was it really that
close that Josh Smith was one of the 12 best players in the conference. Those points lead me to this - the Hawks have gotten proper All
Star consideration over the past 6 years.
I know we want more respect, but when those players aren’t SNIFFING
All-NBA consideration (a much truer expression of quality of the year a player has since it's more apt to be devoid of coaching and fan biases) – do we really need to debate whether Hawks
are getting robbed of trips to the All Star exhibition? I don’t think so and this year, the timing of
our worst stretch coupled with the fact that our two best players are having OK years on an OK team means you get OK consideration. So, we didn’t deserve an All Star and we all
should be OK with that. What we
shouldn’t be OK with is NOT seeing Kyle Korver in the 3pt contest. Now, that’s worthy of some rabble
rousing.

The Hometown Discount Don’t Lie - Obviously, Josh Smith
has and will be a topic of trade discussion for the next 3 weeks. I will weigh in on this in more detail in a
future column, but it’s probably important to say what I said in the last
Truths – everyone is tradeable. I love
Kyle Korver, but if he’s worth a future #1 – adios! I love Ivan Johnson, but if
he must be packaged for a building block for future Hawks titles, then c’est la
vie! I know we all like to pontificate
about who is and isn’t untradeable, but for all of the love I have for this
team – there’s still not one player that has established themselves for this
team as indispensable to the goal of winning a title. Which brings me to Josh Smith. It took me 4 years, but I’m now firmly in the
Josh can be traded camp. Hate to say it,
but I’m not one for mincing words. Josh Smith, for all of his talents, is just
a Joe Johnson clone if you fete him with a max contract. Which means you can’t give him a max
contract. Which means if we want to keep him in Atlanta and still harbor
championship dreams - he’s gotta give a hometown discount. Spare me the
‘someone will give him a max contract’ spiel.
I know some desperate team will be willing to give him more than hie’s
worth. We’ve been down this road before
and failed the test. Until I learn that
the Atlanta Spirit is willing to pay into the luxury tax to acquire players,
it’s impossible for the Hawks to pay the max to Josh Smith and field a
contender, so let Josh prove that he wants to win here and that means – give up
the hometown discount. Period. Not only that – Josh Smith, robbery or not,
is barely an All Star, not a good captain, and makes questionable decisions on
and off the court. If anyone else in the NBA had those credentials, you’d laugh
at the notion that we never need to consider anything over $15M a hometown
discount. In fact, we’ve already BEEN
that organization (see Johnson, Joe). Al
Horford is a wondrous player for any contender….if you consider him your third
best player. Jeff Teague is a wonderfully talented young guard IF he gets a
coach to motivate him AND allow him to actually run the team (and even then, he
still needs to be your 4th best player or worst). The point I’m making here is we have a bunch
of almosts, potentials, and solids – we need a player a step above that and
should be willing to pay top freight for it.
Josh Smith isn’t that. When we’re
talking about family (and I consider Josh family) – sometimes, you have to
speak truth to it. The hard truth is
that if you are paying Josh Smith max money – you aren't and won’t be a
contender. With this CBA and our
collection of talent and coaching, some truths are self-evident and painful,
but it’s time…if we want to win a title.
We either get Josh for the hometown discount ($13-$15M) or we should
usher him out the door.

Larry Drew’s Everchanging Starting 5 & Rotation Must Stop – I
presume that Larry Drew wants to win as many games in the regular season and
postseason as possible to bolster his bid to be the coach of the Hawks in
2013-2014. If so, the lineups and
rotations have to begin to firm up, so that players can begin to completely buy
into their roles. Is John Jenkins
capable of logging starter minutes? Is
Ivan in or out of the doghouse? Is Kyle
going to remain our small forward? Will
Anthony Morrow enter the rotation? All
Star Weekend seems like the appropriate time to start locking this stuff
down. (And yes, I realize we've had
injuries that have impacted this, but the herky jerk nature of the rotation far
precedes any of those issues.

We Need To Re-Hire Mark Price – And it’s not for 3pt
shooting help. I’m not sure why this isn’t
discussed more, but the Hawks as a team are shooting 70% from the charity stripe,
which is 28th in the league.
Do I need to express how horrendous this is? Here's how bad it is - I can make 6 out of 10 FT every day of the week and I don't play basketball regularly any longer. I’ve yet to hear this as a point of emphasis
during the Larry ‘We need more energy’ Drew post game comments and yet, it’s
easy to point to the lost points we have EVERY game. It’s great that we are 3rd in 3pt
%, but one of these things is sustainable during the playoffs (free throw
shooting) and one of these things isn't (3pt shooting). So, I’m not sure what is in the water, but
our inability to get to the line and then CONVERT at an NBA quality level (the
best teams are shooting 10 points better) can be the difference between first
and second round of the playoffs.